Chapter 38 Too Late

• Outside a church, a distraught young man watched helplessly as a newlywed couple emerged to applause and showers of confetti. Unable to tear his gaze from the radiant bride, their eyes met briefly before she smiled shyly and looked away.
• "Why? Why couldn't you have waited?" he cried, thumping the steering wheel in torment. He had only just discovered she was engaged after being overseas that past year. How could she have forgotten him so utterly?
• True, they had not seen each other since childhood when their parents sent them to strict single-sex boarding schools, forcibly separating them. But in their treehouse hideaway, he had pledged to make her his wife one day, and he fully intended to honour that.